With at least 15 residents expressing concern if not opposition, the city planning commission voted 5-0 Wednesday night to table Maple Street Commerce’s plan to expand the Hoover District’s parking lot south of East Maple Street toward nearby residents and cut down trees.

Commission members berated representatives of Maple Street Commerce for not talking to residents about the plan before presenting it to the commission. About 50 attended the meeting including at least four council members.

“Your communication skills with the neighborhood and the city is horrible,” said commission member Tim Morrow. “A third-grader could have come up with a better plan. ... this is amateur hour as far as I’m concerned.”

He said the plan failed to adequately address possible ground instability from mines, the need for better landscaping, the close proximity of the new parking lot area from one resident’s home, bright lot lighting and safety concerns about a proposed retention basin, which Morrow said needed to be fenced.

But he said residents brought up legitimate points and the company would try to come up with a better plan.

Maple Street Commerce wants to expand its parking lot south of East Maple Street and east of the North Canton YMCA that serves the Hoover complex’s Building 16, whose first floor now serves as offices for The Schroer Group and Stark State College. About 110 employees for the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation are scheduled to move into the building’s second floor by July.

“We can’t put any more tenants in that building without additional parking,” said Lanterman, who added that more parking was essential to leasing the remainder of the second floor and attracting at least 300 more jobs.

Maple Street Commerce plans to cut down many but not all of the trees between the current parking lot and neighborhoods that adjoin Fairview and Harman streets SE. The expanded lot would have 562 spaces, an increase of 148.

City Engineer Jim Benekos said the current distance between the lot and the property line would decline from 180 feet to 140 feet.

About 500 feet of the Hoover Trail, which ends at the YMCA, would have to be relocated or eliminated. The company says it would build a retention basin that could handle 200,000 gallons of storm water to capture the increased amount of runoff resulting from the larger parking lot.

Lanterman said Maple Street is looking at building parking decks at the northern end of the Hoover District to serve apartment dwellers and retail stores. But it still needs more spaces to the south.

Page 2 of 2 - IRG’s architect Mike Wellman said to replace some of the trees, the company would plant new trees on a hill around the retention basin. He said the firm’s consultants had found no evidence of mining activity at the site.

Residents who had lived in the area insisted that the site had been used for mining decades ago. They expressed concerns about ground stability due to the work, the much-diminished size of the buffer of trees, flooding, traffic, noise, lights and the safety of the retention basin for children. They said Maple Street could develop more parking to the north.

“I find it highly offensive that those who’ve been planning this expansion of the parking lot didn’t speak to any of the neighbors,” said Judy Wagner, who lives on Fairview. “I do not trust their buffering plans. I do not trust this drainage plan. ... I think there could have been much better planning.”